ISSN 1729-3782

Vol. 5, No. 1, 111-119, 2006

AbstractIn 2003 an
extensive campaign was carried out in the mountainous parts of southern Norway
to measure snow signatures with multi-polarisation SAR using ESAR. Field
campaigns were carried out to support the measurements. Airborne orthophotos
and Radarsat imagery was also acquired in the period. Unfortunately, Envisat
ASAR was not available at the time due to malfunction. In this paper we will
present some of the results from the campaign, specifically multi-polarisation
signatures for snow and bare soil will be derived. The results from using the
multi-polarisation data to derive snow covered area maps will also be
presented, using standard classification schemes. The classified results are
compared with the orthophoto to assess the overall agreement. Snow cover will
also be derived from Radarsat imagery, and compared with orthophoto. Near
simultaneous imagery from single polarisation Radarsat imagery
(HH-polarisation) will be compared to ESAR data to evaluate the potential of
satelliteborne polarimetry to study snow parameters. Issues related to
multi-scale observations of fractional snow covers will be discussed.